Moby Dick Chapter 55-58

In which the errant portrayals of the great whale by artists and naturalists alike are examined with a keen, discerning eye, revealing a litany of fanciful errors born of distance, misunderstanding, and the limitations of capturing such a creature's full majesty ashore. In which, too, the narrative turns to the vivid impressions of the sea itself, describing the whale's vast meadows and the inscrutable life of the ocean, while musing on the peril and mystery that surround both the living leviathan and the very element that cradles it.